The Gift We Don't Recognize Until Later
A birthday reflection on the quiet gift of having a mother who faithfully loved me
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There is one specific memory from childhood that I wish I could erase. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, only that I was old enough to know my words could hurt. I was probably an early teenager, so something like twenty-five years have passed since that afternoon.
My parents were divorced, and I had learned far earlier than any child should that you could sometimes manipulate one parent against the other. In a moment of calculated selfishness, I reached for a weapon that wasn’t even mine. I repeated something I had once heard my dad say about my mom and hurled it back at her.
I can still see her face.
She knew immediately those weren’t my words, but they were undoubtedly my choice. The instant they left my mouth, I wanted them back.
And, even though time has a way of softening most childhood memories, this one has remained painfully sharp. I remember the argument, the words I chose, and I remember my mom’s tears. At the time, I thought the lesson of that afternoon was that words can wound. I know now it was something substantially deeper.
When you’re a child, your parents seem almost eternal. They’re just...there. They’ve always been there. And, you sort of assume that they always will be. You assume there will be another birthday. Another phone call. Another Thanksgiving around the table. Another chance to say what you meant to say.
As children, we rarely think of our parents as men and women whose days are numbered. They aren’t people with finite years, they’re simply Mom and Dad. They’re like fixed points in our lives, as dependable as tomorrow’s sunrise.
But, life has a way of quietly correcting that assumption.
One day, almost imperceptibly, you realize your parents are getting older. Their hair is grayer. Their steps are slower. The hands that carried you now bear the marks of decades spent loving, working, sacrificing, and serving. And birthdays begin to feel different.
They’re still celebrations, but they also become reminders. Every year is another gift from the Lord, and every year is one fewer you’ll likely share together on this side of eternity.
I turned forty this year, and today, my mom turns sixty-five. Somewhere between those two birthdays, I found myself thinking less about my careless words and more about the woman who absorbed them.
As a child, I saw rules. As a father, I see sacrifice. As a child, I saw the ways she disappointed me. As a man, I see the impossible weight she carried.
She was raising children while navigating the heartbreak of a broken marriage. She was trying to build stability when so much around her had become unstable. And, in one of the hardest seasons of her life, her own son picked up someone else’s words and used them to wound her.
I wish I could go back and take those words away. But since I can’t, I can do something else. I can honor her.
One of the unexpected gifts of growing older is that you begin to see your parents more clearly. Not as the larger-than-life figures they seemed when you were five years old, nor as the frustrating authority figures they seemed when you were fifteen, but as ordinary people through whom God accomplished extraordinary things.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that the people who shaped us most, were rarely spectacular. They were simply faithful. Faithful to show up. Faithful to provide. Faithful to pray. Faithful to forgive. And, faithful to love us through seasons when we made it incredibly difficult.
Mom, I don’t know if I’ve ever said this well enough, but Thank you!
Thank you for every meal that appeared on the table without me wondering how it got there. Thank you for every ride, every conversation, every correction, every prayer, every sacrifice that seemed ordinary at the time but became priceless as I grew older. Thank you for loving me when I was immature enough to mistake your love for permanence. And, thank you for continuing to love me after I gave you reasons not to.
I hope today is filled with laughter, stories, good food, and the people you love most.
Happy 65th Birthday. I love you more than I probably know how to say.
And if your birthday has reminded me of anything, it’s this:
Life moves much faster than we imagine.
The people we love are not permanent fixtures in our story. They are gifts entrusted to us for a season. So, call your parents. Visit a little longer. Ask one more question. Listen to one more story you’ve already heard. Don’t assume there will always be another birthday.
One day, you’ll discover that the ordinary afternoons you hardly noticed were, in fact, the ones that mattered most.
Twenty-five years ago, my words were a weapon. Today, they’re the only gift I know how to give. I can’t take back the words that made my mother cry. But, I can use these words to tell her what I should have been saying all along.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
I love you.